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I couldn’t believe the despair and wrist slitting on the results thread.

We should have known Mitt would win NH and that a few other kooks would vote Ron Paul.

It’s not the end of the world, people, we have southern, conservative states to go. In fact, we have 48 states to go.

Or, in Obama’s world 55 states to go.

I get really tired of people calling for Rick Perry to drop out.

South Carolina hasn’t voted yet, and Rick Perry is not responsible for Newt and Santorum not catching fire.

You’d think people would want a good conservative to stay in.

South Carolina hasn’t voted yet, and Rick Perry is not responsible for Newt and Santorum not catching fire.

South Carolina is meaningless. It's an open primary and the liberals and libertarians will be crossing over to vote for Romney and RuPaul. We can get somewhat of an idea by looking at the polls and the final results of the other two contests, but I still think the liberals and libertarians will distort it for Romney and RuPaul.

Iowa:
Polls are first, actual results in ()
#1 Romney - 22.8 (24.6)
#2 Santorum - 16.3 (24.5)
#3 Paul - 21.5 (21.4)
#4 Gingrich - 13.7 (13.3)
#5 Perry - 11.5 (10.3)
#6 Huntsman - 2.3 (0.6)
Undecideds in the polls - 12 points

Iowa - the polls were accurate to within 1.8 points for 5 candidates. Santorum probably picked up mostly undecideds to explain his 8 point difference. Romney beat the polls by 1.8 points, Ron Paul was dead on, Gingrich nearly dead on, Perry underperformed the polls by just over a point, and Huntsman underperformed by under 1.7 (which Romney probably picked up).

New Hampshire:
Polls are first, actual results in ()
#1 Romney - 37 (37.5)
#2 Paul - 17.5 (18)
#3 Huntsman - 16 (14.5)
#4 Santorum - 11 (11.5)
#5 Gingrich - 9 (10.3)
#6 Perry - 1 (1)
Undecideds in the polls - 8 points

New Hampshire - all accurate to within half point, except for Huntsman who underperformed the polls by 1.5 points and Gingrich who beat the polls by 1.3 points. Romney beat the polls by 0.5, Paul by 0.5, Huntsman underperformed, Santorum beat the polls by 0.5, Gingrich beat them by 1.3, and Perry tied his polls.

South Carolina poll averages:
#1 Romney - 31.1
#2 Santorum - 20.7
#3 Gingrich - 19.7
#4 Paul - 10.7
#5 Perry - 5
#6 Huntsman - 2.3
Undecideds in the polls - 10 points

The only thing that really stands out in the first two contests were Santorum beating the polls by 8 points in Iowa. Everybody else was well within the margin of error.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict this, based on the previous two contests' polls and results and SC being an open primary:

#1 Romney 35+
#2 Santorum 18
#3 Gingrich 18
#4 RuPaul 18
#5 Perry 5
#6 Huntsman 1

I'm not saying that RuPaul and Romney are going to get the undecideds, I'm saying that because of the crossover Democrats and Libertarians, Romney and RuPaul will pick up a lot more than what they are showing. Chances are Gingrich and Santorum will pick up the undecideds, but they'll be nullified by the crossovers thanks to it being an open primary. Perry may even lose a point and Santorum and Gingrich may lose more thanks to their voters being diluted by the liberals crossing over.